第8章 CHAPTER II(1)

Life on Board--Calm--Boat Lowered--Snares and Traps--Land--Driven off coast--Enter Port Lyttelton--Requisites for a Sea Voyage--Spirit of Adventure aroused.

Before continuing the narrative of my voyage,I must turn to other topics and give you some account of my life on board.My time has passed very pleasantly:I have read a good deal;I have nearly finished Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,am studying Liebig's Agricultural Chemistry,and learning the concertina on the instrument of one of my fellow-passengers.Besides this,I have had the getting up and management of our choir.We practise three or four times a week;we chant the Venite,Glorias,and Te Deums,and sing one hymn.I have two basses,two tenors,one alto,and lots of girls,and the singing certainly is better than you would hear in nine country places out of ten.I have been glad by this means to form the acquaintance of many of the poorer passengers.My health has been very good all the voyage:Ihave not had a day's sea-sickness.The provisions are not very first-rate,and the day after to-morrow,being Christmas Day,we shall sigh for the roast beef of Old England,as our dinner will be somewhat of the meagrest.Never mind!On the whole I cannot see reason to find any great fault.We have a good ship,a good captain,and victuals sufficient in quantity.Everyone but myself abuses the owners like pick pockets,but I rather fancy that some of them will find themselves worse off in New Zealand.When I come back,if I live to do so (and Isometimes amass a wonderful fortune in a very short time,and come back fabulously rich,and do all sorts of things),I think I shall try the overland route.Almost every evening four of us have a very pleasant rubber,which never gets stale.So you will have gathered that,though very anxious to get to our journey's end,which,with luck,we hope to do in about three weeks'time,still the voyage has not proved at all the unbearable thing that some of us imagined it would have been.One great amusement I have forgotten to mention--that is,shuffle-board,a game which consists in sending some round wooden platters along the deck into squares chalked and numbered from one to ten.This game will really keep one quite hot in the coldest weather if played with spirit.

During the month that has elapsed since writing the last sentence,we have had strong gales and long,tedious calms.On one of these occasions the captain lowered a boat,and a lot of us scrambled over the ship's side and got in,taking it in turns to row.The first thing that surprised us was the very much warmer temperature of the sea-level than that on deck.The change was astonishing.I have suffered from a severe cold ever since my return to the ship.On deck it was cold,thermometer 46degrees;on the sea-level it was deliciously warm.The next thing that surprised us was the way in which the ship was pitching,though it appeared a dead calm.Up she rose and down she fell upon a great hummocky swell which came lazily up from the S.W.,making our horizon from the boat all uneven.On deck we had thought it a very slight swell;in the boat we perceived what a heavy,humpy,ungainly heap of waters kept rising and sinking all round us,sometimes blocking out the whole ship,save the top of the main royal,in the strangest way in the world.We pulled round the ship,thinking we had never in our lives seen anything so beautiful as she then looked in the sunny morning,when suddenly we saw a large ripple in the waters not far off.

At first the captain imagined it to have been caused by a whale,and was rather alarmed,but by and by it turned out to be nothing but a shoal of fish.Then we made for a large piece of seaweed which we had seen some way astern.It extended some ten feet deep,and was a huge,tangled,loose,floating mass;among it nestled little fishes innumerable,and as we looked down amid its intricate branches through the sun-lit azure of the water,the effect was beautiful.This mass we attached to the boat,and with great labour and long time succeeded in getting it up to the ship,the little fishes following behind the seaweed.It was impossible to lift it on board,so we fastened it to the ship's side and came in to luncheon.After lunch some ropes were arranged to hoist the ladies in a chair over the ship's side and lower them into the boat--a process which created much merriment.Into the boat we put half a dozen of champagne--a sight which gave courage to one or two to brave the descent who had not previously ventured on such a feat.Then the ladies were pulled round the ship,and,when about a mile ahead of her,we drank the champagne and had a regular jollification.Returning to show them the seaweed,the little fishes looked so good that someone thought of a certain net wherewith the doctor catches ocean insects,porpytas,clios,spinulas,etc.With this we caught in half an hour amid much screaming,laughter,and unspeakable excitement,no less than 250of them.They were about five inches long--funny little blue fishes with wholesome-looking scales.We ate them next day,and they were excellent.Some expected that we should have swollen or suffered some bad effects,but no evil happened to us:not but what these deep-sea fishes are frequently poisonous,but I believe that scaly fishes are always harmless.We returned by half-past three,after a most enjoyable day;but,as proof of the heat being much greater in the boat,I may mention that one of the party lost the skin from his face and arms,and that we were all much sunburnt even in so short a time;yet one man who bathed that day said he had never felt such cold water in his life.